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Tory leadership love-in creates more warmth than light

LONDON — Billed as the "final showdown" between the two men vying to become the U.K.'s next prime minister, the last Conservative leadership hustings turned out to be more sickly love-in than gladiatorial combat.

For Conservative Party members who will choose the next prime minister still wavering over whether to back Boris Johnson or Jeremy Hunt, in the final reckoning on Monday, there was little to divide the two privately educated senior Tories.

With their positions and debating lines now well-rehearsed after nearly a month of clashes, the evening generated more warmth than light.

Both made it clear they would not accept a hypothetical five-year time limit to the Northern Irish backstop (even though the EU is offering no such change to the Brexit deal). Both agreed that the U.S. has taken the wrong approach to the Iran nuclear deal. And both condemned President Donald Trump over his attack on four congresswomen of color — although they refused to call it explicitly "racist."

Voting in the Tory leadership contest began 10 days ago, meaning many of the 160,000 Conservative members have likely already cast their ballots ahead of an announcement on July 23. Johnson is the strong favorite, according to several polls of party members, but for those who are yet to decide, it will likely come down more to character as opposed to any stark policy dividing line between the two candidates.

On course for no deal

With eyes on a largely pro-Brexit Tory electorate, both candidates at the event hosted by the Sun newspaper and TalkRADIO took a hard line on Britain's departure from the European Union.

Johnson repeated his vow to leave on the Brexit deadline of October 31 come what may, while Hunt stuck to his more flexible stance on that deadline. But as the race has gone on, the foreign secretary has hardened his rhetoric on other aspects of the U.K.'s departure from the EU.

One route mooted by some in the Tory Party as a way to get MPs to back the backstop would be to give it an expiry date. But even if such a time limit could be negotiated with Brussels — a doubtful proposition — neither candidate said it would make the deal currently on the table more palatable.

Asked if he would accept a five-year time limit on the Northern Irish insurance policy, Johnson answered "no to the time limit, or unilateral escape hatches or all of these kind of elaborate devices, glosses, codicils and so on you could apply to the backstop," which he went on to describe as an "instrument of our own incarceration within the customs union and the single market.”

Hunt, who supported May's deal with the backstop, declared that the "backstop as it is is dead."

"I agree with Boris, I don’t think tweaking it with a time limit will do the trick," he added.

Message to Trump

The two men also agreed on their approach to Trump. Perhaps chastened by accusations that last week that he had not stood up to the U.S. president over his attack on British Ambassador to Washington Kim Darroch (Trump had called the diplomat a "pompous fool"), Johnson was more forthright over Trump's latest Twitter blast.

The former foreign secretary condemned Trump's attack on Democratic congresswomen of color at the weekend as “totally unacceptable,” adding that he could not understand why the U.S. president had made it.

Trump tweeted Sunday that the four women, who "originally came from countries whose governments are a complete and total catastrophe," should "go back" and fix issues in those countries before telling him how to run the U.S. government.

Trump's tirade was directed at Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Tlaib and Ayanna Pressley, who were born in the U.S., and Ilhan Omar, who arrived in the country as a refugee from Somalia aged 12.

“It is totally unacceptable in a modern multiracial country which you’re trying to lead,” Johnson said of U.S. president’s remarks.

Asked multiple times whether he thought the remarks were racist, Johnson refused to condemn them as such. But he said: “You can take from what I’ve said what I think about Mr. Trump’s remarks.”

Hunt also refused to describe the comments as racist, but said it was “totally offensive … that people are still saying that kind of thing.”

Those comments may come back to haunt both candidates with a president who has shown he rarely forgets or ignores a crossed word from overseas partners.

And both men acknowledged several times the importance of the relationship with Washington. Earlier, Johnson said he wants to do a quick trade with the U.S. and suggested that such an agreement would be an opportunity to raise standards in U.S. agriculture.

Asked if he would accept chlorine-washed chicken from the U.S. into U.K. markets, something that is highly controversial with British consumers but the U.S. has made clear it wants, Johnson said he would not.

“I’m not in favor of importing anything from the U.S. that involves lower animal welfare standards or lower hygiene,” he said.

“We should use [a trade deal] as an incentive to lift their standards to match ours,” he added.

Most trade experts expect a post-Brexit U.K. as the far smaller economy to have a weak bargaining position in trade negotiations with the U.S. and so be forced to accept most demands from Washington in order to do a deal quickly.

Immigration clash

The most stark difference of the night between the two contenders was over immigration.

While Johnson, who led the Vote Leave campaign with a pledge to "Take Back Control," refused to "play a numbers game" when asked about immigration levels, Hunt said people had voted Brexit "with an expectation that overall levels of net immigration would come down."

"I believe that people would think we were betraying the spirit of that Brexit referendum if we didn't find a way of bringing down overall numbers," he said.

With Johnson the clear favorite to take the keys to No. 10 Downing Street, Hunt — perhaps with a view to keeping his job as foreign secretary — appeared to pull his punches rather than go after his rival.

At one point, Johnson was being grilled over whether his partner would move into No. 10 with him. Hunt tried a joke about the Brexiteer figurehead moving in next door to him if Hunt won the top job — a reference to the traditional residence of the U.K.'s finance minister, the chancellor of the exchequer.

Despite the bonhomie, the olive branch did not pay off for Hunt. Johnson refused to return the favor of an implicit senior job offer.